Counting-out rhymes

rhyme used when children appoint position in a game

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol and nursery rhyme. A classic example of a cumulative song, the lyrics detail a series of increasingly numerous gifts given to the speaker by their "true love" on each of the twelve days of Christmas. The carol, whose words were first published in England in the late eighteenth century, has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 68. A large number of different melodies have been associated with the song, of which the best known is derived from a 1909 arrangement of a traditional folk melody by English composer Frederic Austin.

folk song

children's chasing game

folk song

English language children's song, counting and nursery rhyme